Customer Reviews

CHiPs: The Complete Second Season

5 star:		(28)
4 star:		(6)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

Long ago, before the "reality TV plague" laid waste to most of the television landscape, there was a time when viewers could choose from a whole host of entertaining, fun, uplifting programs. If you're looking for escapist entertainment, likable characters, fun plots, and a few nifty stunts.... then you'll love Chips!

Although this series is over thirty years old, Chips has aged quite gracefully. This is due in part to great chemistry between the actors (all perfectly cast) and mostly lighthearted, fun scripts. If you're a dedicated fan seeking to feed your "nostalgia monster", you'll find yourself in the middle of a retro buffet! It just doesn't get any better than this!

With the recent trend being to release DVD "half seasons" at full season prices (Love Boat, Cannon, etc.), it's nice to see that fans of Chips have been treated fairly. An entire season of Chips is well worth the reasonable list price, and Amazon currently has a wonderful pre-order price to make this an irresistible purchase!

Let's hope that future seasons arrive in a timely manner! I just can't get enough!

Note:

Season one was released on SINGLE SIDED discs. This set is DOUBLE SIDED.

JM

I have to say that the amazon product review sums it up perfectly. This is a great retro gift to yourself or a friend. You feel good watching chips, even if you never saw it the first time. The same zanny antics from season one continue, with the blend of action and comedy going at 70 mph. Estrada's little special feature, where he interviews actual Chippies, is cute and shows how much he was influenced by the show. An odd episode, which I chalk up to being made in the 70s in a more innocent time, is where John befriends a 15 year-old girl who obviously has fallen in love with him, to the point of making him dinners, getting his slippers and hanging out at his place instead of with her mom. John never says she can't or shouldn't do any of these things, only says to tell her mom where she is at. It is very weird! What adult, much less a male cop, would hang out by himself with a 15 year-old in his apartment and tell her to stay there whenever she wanted? Weird! I may expect that sort of thing from Ponch, but John? Come on.

My only real complaint is that the sound is often terrible. At many points you have to turn it up all the way to hear the dialogue, then the music comes blaring in and you fall out of your seat. Also, it would have been nice to have other cast members make some sort of commentary or appearance, but along with nearly all of WB's other dvd sets, they refuse to pay anyone for their time, travel or comments, so once again their cheapness only hurts the fans who supported the show in the first place. But they know we will buy it anyway.

Still very much worth it, if for nothing else, Ponch's extended disco, freeze frame scenes at the end of one of the episodes. Man, this stuff gets funky!

Another great season of a great series, at least so far. The stories really moved (and I mean that very literally)--that is, there were plenty of chases, and also, there was plenty of other great action from our heroes Ponch and Jon. The chases gave this second season's worth of "CHiPs," like the first, sort of a "travelogue" feel; in essence, I got the sense that I was being led on a guided tour of L.A. and its environs, right from my own home. This second season's worth of "CHiPs" represents part of the time period in which the series aired on NBC Saturdays from 8 P.M. to 9 P.M. In total, I have truly enjoyed this second season's worth of "CHiPs," and I heartily recommend it. Warning: this season is presented on three double-sided discs (at least for the episodes).

The extras include a documentary presented by Erik Estrada, entitled "The Real CHiPs", and a feature-length special called "The Greatest Adventures of CHiPs" that recounts (according to the package) "the coolest cases from Seasons One and Two." The extras are presented on a fourth disc, which is single-sided.

This season (unlike the first) also includes English, Spanish, and Portuguese audio, and English, Spanish, Portuguese, and French subtitles.

Overall, an excellent release from Warner Bros. of an excellent NBC series from MGM, and like I said, I heartily recommend it.

As some of the music score for season 2 is available re-mixed in stereo from the original masters it is a shame a stereo re-mix sound track was not added to make the program even more enjoyable.

Shame also the picture could not have been re-mastered and last negative is the DVD's are flippers which I really hate.

However it is still great to see Jon & Ponch in action again.

I may also be wrong on this point but the menus seem to use the season 1 theme and the episodes are in Dolby Digital 1/0

It's about time they finally got the 1978-79 Season of this police drama on DVD along with the fact that this was the season when Ponch(Erik Estrada) & Jon(Larry Wilcox)really hit their stride & when I started watching CHiPs a lot more often, especially when this season kicked off in the Fall of 1978 which was only a year later from when this police drama made its debut on NBC in the Autumn of 1977.

In fact this season takes me all the way back to memory lane to my childhood days when CHiPs was on NBC every Saturday night & when this show became even more popular, especially since this season is even better, more upgraded, and quite a bit more sophisticated than the First Season was with more action, more co-stars, more accidents, and had major improvement on both the CHiPs music scoring and improvement on the CHiPs theme song from it's 1977-78 Season along with the fact that this season had even more viewers than the 1st Season did.

This 1978-1979 Season is also the season when Brianne Leary joins the cast & crew as Jon & Ponch's spunky fellow CHP Officer Sindy Cahill which was eventually replaced by Randi Oakes as Officer Bonnie Clark as the new 7-Charles in the 3rd Season, plus this was the season when Lou Wagner joined the cast & crew as CHP mechanic(Harlan Arliss)making this the first year that this show had a female co-star and a special CHP technician.

Therefore; Sindy & Harlan made each episode in this season more sophisticated, especially episodes like "Family Crisis", "Trick Or Trick", "High Flyer", "The Sheik", "Return Of The Turks", "Supercycle", "High Explosive", "Down Time", "Repo Man", "Pressure Point", "Bio-Rhythms", "Rally 'Round The Bank", "The Matchmakers", "Ride The Whirlwind", "The Greatest Adventures Of CHiPs", etc.

The 2nd Season of this police drama is also the season when Ponch gets his first car, which was his bronze Pontiac Firebird & when Ponch gets his very first apartment at the Marina when he sells his RV trailer that Ponch was living at in the 1st Season along with the fact that this is also the season when Jon gets his brand new 4-wheel drive GMC stepside pick-up which was a major upgrade from the tiny white sports car that he had in the First Season.

Therefore, it was kind of like seeing Randi Oakes going from a bad guy to a good guy, since she was a criminal working against Ponch and Jon in the "Down Time" episode and then she was a cop and fellow CHP officer working with Ponch and Jon in the following season, starting with the "Roller Disco" episode with the exception of the "High Octane" episode, since Sindy was in that episode instead of Bonnie for some reason.

The Second Season of CHiPs is also the only season with Sindy as well as the last season with California Highway Patrolman Gene Fritz(Lew Saunders), which got replaced by CHP Officer(Jeb Turner)as the new 7-David in the Third Season when Sindy got replaced by Bonnie as the new 7-Charles.

The truth is, I actually preferred Bonnie to Sindy and thought Bonnie was better looking and more sophisticated than Sindy was, but I really missed Sindy when she left this show and got replaced by Bonnie in the 1979-80 Season of CHiPs and I wish that Bonnie and Sindy could've co-starred together on CHiPs as fellow officers of one another, kind of like Deputy Enos and Deputy Cletus did temporarily in the first few episodes of THE DUKES OF HAZZARD's 5th Season and kind of like Officers Vince Romano(Adrian Zmed) and Jim Corrigan(James Darren) did at one time on TJ HOOKER before Romano departed from that show, but Sindy wasn't bad looking either and made the 2nd Season episodes more interesting with her smile, her perkiness, her sweet personality, her participation in cases with Jon and Ponch, etc., which gave me something to look back on and compare to to look back on the days when Sindy was on the show before Bonnie even came along, which helped us see how much a lot of things had changed between Jon's first 2 years on the show and Jon's last 2 years on this police drama throughout its whole 1977-83 run on NBC.

I also liked seeing
-Randi Oakes playing a crook in the "Down Time" episode as a guest star before her co-starring days on CHiPs as Ponch & Jon's foxy fellow officer(Bonnie Clark)in the following season.
-Mills Watson in the "Repo Man" episode before his co-starring days as Deputy Perkins on SHERIFF LOBO who also previously guest starred in the "Rustling" episode in the 1st Season.
-Michael Conrad in the "Biorhythms" episode before his co-starring days as Sgt. Phil Esterhaus on the police drama HILL STREET BLUES
-Mary Crosby in the "Pressure Point" episode before her co-starring days on DALLAS
-Charlie Brill in the "Neighborhood Watch" episode before his co-starring days as Capt. Lipschitz on the police drama SILK STALKINGS and before his co-starring days on the short-lived TV series SUPERTRAIN
-Markie Post in the "Rally Round The Bank" episode before her co-starring days on NIGHT COURT and THE FALL GUY
-Christopher Knight in the "Family Crisis" episode after his co-starring days as Peter Brady on THE BRADY BUNCH
-Laurie Hendler in the "Neighborhhod Watch" episode before her co-starring days on GIMME A BREAK
-Eric Braeden in the "Mait Team" episode before his co-starring days as the often bitter(Victor Newman) on THE YOUNG & THE RESTLESS
-Danny Bonaduce in the "Family Crisis" episode after his co-starring days as Danny Patridge on THE PARTRIDGE FAMILY
-Beatrice Colen in the "Trick Or Trick" episode after her co-starring days as Diana's spunky colleague(Etta)on WONDER WOMAN
-Robbie Rist in the "Neighborhood Watch" episode after his BRADY BUNCH days, etc.

In addition to that, this 1978-79 Season of CHiPs DVD is quite a bit more upgraded with better subtitles than CHiPs-Season 1 DVD on top of that.

So if you liked the First Season of this police drama, you'll definetly like the Second Season, especially since the 1978-79 Season is a serious upgrade from the 1977-78 Season along with the fact that CHiPs Second Season is a lot better than CHiPs First Season hands down, which most CHiPs fans would agree with me on.

Hopefully, we wont have to wait this long for them to put the 3rd Season of CHiPs on DVD, not to mention the 1979-80 Season was even more upgraded than the first 2 Seasons of CHiPs and hopefully it wont take as long to get CHiPs Third Season released on DVD as it did to get CHiPs First and Second Seasons released on DVD, especially since CHiPs 2nd Season didn't even get put on DVD until a year after CHiPs 1st Season was.

In fact, it would be a perfect holiday or X-Mas gift if they were to release CHiPs-Season 3 on DVD by the end of November in order to be here just in time for X-Mas this year, so hopefully we'll get lucky enough to get the 1979-80 Season of CHiPs on DVD by the end of 2008, since me and most other CHiPs fans would like to see the remaining 4 seasons of CHiPs released on DVD in the near future, starting with CHiPs 3rd Season, since CHiPs 1st and 2nd Seasons are already on DVD.

Something else that baffled me about this season was in the "High Flyer" episode Ponch was afraid to fly and kept trying to find ways to avoid being selected for air patrol with CHP pilot officer Bob Patterson(John Ericson), but in the previous season, in the "Career Day" episode Ponch jumped right up and volunteered to go on air patrol in a CHP chopper after he got in trouble with Getraer for breaking his motorcycle at the High School where Ponch was asked to do a presentation for the students on career day, which made absolutley no sense.

Something else that I couldn't help finding odd was in the "High Flyer" episode when Ponch finally goes on air patrol in the CHP chopper with Patterson towards the end of the episode, Ponch spots the tan Ford van that Ponch and Jon were pursuing the first 2 times towards the beginning of that episode, but when Ponch spots that tan Ford van from the chopper, Ponch tells Jon that it was a brown Chevy van that the car stripping thieves used when they tried to kill Ponch & Jon while trying to get away from them during Jon & Ponch's 2nd hot pursuit in the "High Flyer" episode.

In addition to why I couldn't help being baffled about Ponch telling Jon it was the same brown Chevy van instead of the same Ford van that the car strippers used to get away from Ponch & Jon, a Ford van looks nothing at all like a Chevy van, especially since Ford & Chevy are competitors, so why would Ponch say it's a Chevy van if it was obviously a Ford van that they'd been pursuing, especially after they chased it twice in the "High Flyer" episode.

CHiPs 2nd Season also takes me all the way back to memory lane when NBC's motto was "NBSee Us", since that was the slogan for NBC from the Autumn of 1978 thru the Summer of 1979.

It's just too bad that this CHiPs-Season 2 DVD didn't have a bonus episode from the 3rd Season kind of like Universal does with a lot of their TV DVD box sets like Universal did with KNIGHT RIDER-SEASON 3, MAGNUM, PI-SEASON 6, THE A-TEAM-SEASON 4, THE ROCKFORD FILES-SEASON 3, THE ROCKFORD FILES-SEASON 4, MAGNUM-SEASON 3; etc.

Chances are the reason why Warner Bros. is taking too long to bring CHiPs Third Season out on DVD is perhaps due to today's struggling economy and the recession contributing to Warner Bros. not making enough sales with the CHiPs 2nd Season DVD back in 2008, which I'm sure is due to the fact that people are spending less money and making more cutbacks during these tight times.

To acknowledge the most recent reviewer. Yes, they still have the season 1 theme music in the "choose episode" screen. As for the episodes. Obviously the best known disco styled theme score began in earnest on the season 2 opening credits and stayed throughout until it ended in 1983 when that wannabe Bobby Nelson "attempted" to recreate John/Larry Wilcox's role. I remember seeing a lot of the episodes as a kid, but in the last 30 years I forgot which ones were in what seasons. I definitely agree with some of the reviewers that the episodes were better rounded than season 1. As with most tv shows, it's a crawl walk run process. Season 1 was their "crawl" and season two is when they really "start to walk." I never realized Randi Oakes with the short hair in the "Down Time" episode grew her hair long after her appearance and came aboard the next season at the time 30 years ago. Atleast for youngsters like me at the time, I never noticed she played a villian in season 2 with the short hair. There were other repeat villians. The guy who was the "Repo Man" with the bald head and stache' also played a drunk driver who swindled his way out of tickets through a good attorney to frustrate Ponch and John in another episode.I remember the BMX craze as a kid and the episode here I remember made me want to do it myself on the same tracks sprouting up with the moguls,etc at the time. Highlights are the "Downtime Episode", The "Turks" episode with mid 30's guys like myself today still looking for thrills,etc. The Halloween episode was definitely better than anything from season 1's catalog as well. I am really looking forward to season 3 because I believe that's the one with Jim Brown as a roller skate robber and the one with the hypocritical preachers counterfitting dough. Not to generalize, but some of the preachers today are the biggest hypocrites. Handling delinguent loan issues with banks for a living, some of the most obstinate debtors are preachers and pastors who try to live tax free, yet have the audacity to take out personal and church loans and immediately default and go into hiding. I think of that season 3 episode everytime I'm on the phone calling one of them.LOL.

I remember watching Chips every week when i was a kid.There have been many cop shows that have aired since but none have come close to being as good.Chips has aged like fine wine.what makes Chips the best show ever is the cast,the chemistry,the theme,the producers,the directors,the family oriented base scripts,etc.I am looking forward to buying all the seasons as they become available.God bless Chips!!

I was four years old when CHiPs first came on the air and I would watch it every week, plus all the years of re-runs on TBS. Now I have a four year old son and we watch it together. For a couple hours on the weekend I'll pop in a dvd from the set and it's a trip back in time (no mortgage, no car payment, recession, bailouts, lay-offs, ect) just a couple kids on the couch watching seven-mary 3 & 4 on there latest adventure in sunny southern California. This show is great for the whole family, my son loves all the old cars and chase scenes, and my wife and I enjoy seeing all the old trends and fashions. I highly recommend both CHiPS sets season one and two, and I can't wait for season three to come out.

This season was great, better than season 1. My husband and I watch the whole season till it's done and then we get online to see how soon we can order the next season. Watching these old episodes of Chips takes us back to our childhood when we watched all of these for the first time. Good buy for any Chips fan.

Altough I liked season one the best , I will definitly be entertained by season two , the first season with the "Funky disco Music". The Freeze Frame laughing at the end of every episode, the season Of "Sindy" (before Bonnie") and of course, the over exaggerated multi car collisions on the (not yet opened) I-210 fwy in LA scenes. And let us not forget about Harlen and his dog who growls at Getrear (did I spell that right?) or when Ponch drinks out of his cup. Yet this will defintly reminds of those childhood days when my buddies and I would ride our bicycles and fight over who was going to be Ponch or Jon (Whoever wrecked their Motorcycle on the episode that night). So buy this DVD when it's released sit back and enjoy.(Ha Ha Ha...)